


a hole in the world

by contrarian



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 23:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrarian/pseuds/contrarian
Summary: Stamets, after.





	a hole in the world

**Author's Note:**

> Written a while back when this aired. Never got around to writing the ‘comfort’ part, and it’s very much unfinished, but I hope you guys enjoy anyway!

> _"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell."_
> 
>  -Edna St. Vincent Millay

* * *

 

After a week or two, it just became easier to avoid people.

Paul had pushed himself in the beginning, thinking that perhaps keeping busy would be enough, that even though the war was over he could find enough work to keep himself upright. To keep himself from keeling over from the unbearable breathless pressure-pain that hadn’t left him since-

He kept working, at first.

Logically, he knew that isolating himself was a bad idea. So he didn’t. He clung to his routine, even though every morning, when he woke up on his own (sometimes he pretended that things were like before- that Hugh was on a different shift pattern, that he’d see each other later), and ate on his own, brushed his teeth on his own- he soldiered on.

Paul knew he looked like hammered shit. Not because he made a habit of seeing his reflection- something about mirrors these days constricted his chest and he hadn’t exactly figured out why. But he could feel the weight, the sagging of his shoulders. He could feel the puffiness of his eyes and the way his uniform didn’t quite fit the same way. What was the point of eating on his own? What was the point of sitting in the mess trying to act like a normal human being when everything in his head was absence? So he lived on cold snacks, random shit, sometimes food he didn’t even like. Anything that didn’t assault him with a memory that broke his heart.

At the beginning, Paul hadn’t give his appearance much thought. Any energy he had was spent trying to act like what he thought would be his old self, a person that no longer existed. But as time passed, he started to notice the sad, pitying looks people would shoot him. He started to take umbridge with the patient niceness that people treated him with, the ‘support’ they subtly offered.

It wasn’t even that they acted differently to how he himself would have in their position. They were being the kindest, most compassionate colleagues he could have asked for.

Frankly speaking though, he was dying to tell them where to fucking go.

It had got exhausting to ride the waves of inattentive blankness, crushing guilt, irrational anger, petty irritation, without saying things that he truly regretted and that his targets did not deserve. And then hating himself even as he felt a sick thrill from the hurt in their eyes.

So after a while, when things levelled out on the ship- he gave up.

It was so easy. He couldn’t believe how easy it was. Instead of putting himself through the daily slog of failing to pretend he was okay, he stayed in his quarters. Saru had given him unlimited leave, as kindly as Paul could have expected.

“Take all the time you need,” he’d said. And unspoken, Saru had been so warm. But Paul could only smile tightly, feel the tiniest bloom of relief, go to his quarters and lock the door.

And then he just lay there. Sometimes he browsed journals mindlessly on his pad. Sometimes he halfheartedly tried to exercise. Mostly he felt sorry for himself.

It felt like he was in an endless loop- one minute he was pretty much himself, even if he was a little low, then the next some thought or object in his line of sight would swing him downwards and paralyse him for a length of time that didn’t even seem to matter as the days blurred together. And around, and around. Was it a circle or a spiral? And if it was a spiral, was he going up or down? He’d read that somewhere, once. He was so _tired._

At one time or another, he’d found antidepressants were useful to keep him on a level, especially since he’d been uprooted to this godforsaken ship and Starfleet’s godforsaken war, and he definitely had some kicking about. But giving it some thought, he wasn’t convinced it would help. He was grieving his world. He _should_ feel like this. In his heart, he knew he didn’t want to feel any different, really- in some deeply silly, melodramatic way, he was convinced that he’d die from this. He didn’t want to feel better, because that would mean he had to move on one day. That whatever his shell of a life was now, it was going to carry on.

All he wanted, at this point, was to fall asleep and just… not wake up. At least he didn’t dream. He’d tried bedtime without sleeping pills, and the experience didn’t bear repeating, not that bedtime even made sense anymore, in space, with nothing to get up for.

Paul had never been the most outgoing, or the most trusting- it had sometimes been a point of contention between him and Hugh, that he _wouldn’t make an effort_ , that he had _so much to give_. Paul wasn’t convinced, at the time. He was under no illusions about how grouchy, sullen, and unapproachable he could be (although now he would reinvent his personality and grow a second head to have Hugh back). He’d always been something of a loner, but being with Hugh had changed what he was capable of feeling. Paul knew sometimes people looked at the two of them, and wondered how Paul had been so lucky. Paul wondered himself, most of the time. But he was. And in their quiet, private, intimate moments, he’d felt like someone new. He’d never felt that he needed anyone else. And after Straal and the Glenn, Paul had felt on some level that it just wasn’t safe to be too close on a starship, and he’d been proved right. It made sense, that the person that had taught him to be defenceless in love had ended up hurting him the most. Paul had never cared about never having loved and been loved. But having loved and lost was so, so much worse.

_Fuck you, Hugh. I love you. I miss you._

Burnham and Tilly, bless her heart, checked in every so often, and he rallied, voice calls only, making sure to sound- upset, so it didn’t seem fake, but- not like he was dying slowly, which was how he felt. He didn’t think Burnham was convinced but she let him be. Paul guessed she understood preferring to be alone with the pain.

Hugh had been his everything, and even then, in some ways Paul had always been a bit of a closed book. He didn’t want help, and he couldn’t conceive of asking for it, at least from someone who didn’t know him as deeply as Hugh had.

Some days it was irritating, and some days it was a relief, the random calls he’d get from people he’d only really considered work colleagues. On his better days, Paul would make a note to himself to just- make more of an effort. If only Hugh could see him now! Show them he cared, because, on some level he did. It just was never- at the forefront of his mind. He knew he could rely on them; he didn’t need to socialise with them. So he would, when… when what? When he was better? When Hugh was back?

Paul choked back a laugh.

What must have been a couple of weeks or so after he had locked himself up, Tilly knocked on his door, then pressed the buzzer. Paul sighed and asked her to wait a minute over the intercom. He knew he couldn’t avoid this any more.

So he cleaned himself up, washed his face, kicked things into corners, and braced himself. He answered the door.

Tilly looked at him, pale and worried. She didn’t seem to like what she saw.

Paul smiled a little, but judging by her expression it had been a mistake, so he dropped it.

“Uhh, sorry to just drop in on you like this. I was just worrying about you, and I’m sorry if that’s a bit familiar! It’s just that things have been so hectic on the program, but I really wanted to check how you were doing because you do really mean a lot to me and I just don’t feel like calling has been enough… I just haven’t seen you around and I guess…”

Paul couldn’t find the energy to interrupt her, so he let her trail away. He opened his mouth, half considering telling her the truth, and then really looked at her, held her gaze.

She was so young. And strong, of course, but he couldn’t burden her with _this_. She was so empathetic, and the look of sheer concern for him was already almost too much

He was so tired. And the days passed, and blurred together, and he’d refill his prescription for sleeping pills, and sometimes the haze would lift tantalisingly and he would read or sing to himself, or even _remember_ without pain and guilt, and then. And then didn’t bear thinking about, he could only experience it and take pills and hope he wouldn’t wake up alone to yet another interminable day.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback appreciated, as always x


End file.
